Bangers and Mash Asian Style

Three cheers for mixing food cultures! This recipe started off as a good ol’ bangers and mash recipe but as I was doing the prep work, I was taken by the idea of ginger and honey with sausages. So I went with it. These are the results. The way the ‘gravy’ mixes with the potatoes makes them extra creamy and gives them a great punch of gingery yumminess. This is a fantastic heart-warming dish for a cold, blustery fall day.Make this meal. It is really easy, pretty fast to make, and really really yummy. Plus, it can be scaled down or up to make it the perfect meal for one or for a crowd. I always find it really difficult to find a meal for one. More often that not, I’ll end up making a meal for two and eating it all myself sending myself into a food coma. To those of you who can set the extra serving aside for lunch, good for you! I’m am just not one of those people. I made and wrote this as a meal for one, but go crazy with it. You could easily just up the number of sausages to make it for a crowd. The only limiting factor is the size of oven proof frying pan you have. Other than that, you can go crazy! Switch up the ratios of ingredients if you would like, swap wine for sake, or skip the honey and ginger to go for a more classical bangers and mash. Truly, this is an idiot proof recipe so play with it!

Serves 1

3 pork sausages (if you’re really hungry, go for 4)

2 potatoes or however many you think you can eat. I always tend to make too much mash.

1 onion thinly sliced

1cm to 1 inch cube ginger finely grated (I suggest you use a zester). I went for the full 1″ cube, but I’m a big ginger fan

2 cloves garlic finely minced

cube of beef stock

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp sesame seed oil

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup red wine

Peel and chop the potatoes. Put them in a large pot covered with an inch of water.

Slice the onions. I like to keep them long and stringy to give another texture in the mash.

Finely chop the garlic and grate the ginger. In the pictures, I tried to chop it as finely as I could, but next time I would definitely use a fine grater.

Heat a large cast iron frying pan (or one that can go in the oven) over high heat and add 1 tsp of the sesame oil.

Once the oil is nice and hot, add the sausages. Allow the skin to blister, then rotate them until the sausage skins are a nice brown colour. Right now you only want to brown the sausages to give them texture, don’t worry about actually cooking them through.

Once the skin is nice and blistered, set the sausages aside and turn the heat down to medium low.

At this point, put some water on to boil. You will need 1 cup of boiling water to dissolve the stock.

Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).

Turn the heat on under the potatoes. Turning them on now means they should be cooked by the time the sausages come out of the oven.

Add the olive oil and the remaining sesame oil to the frying pan. Then throw in the onions.

Once the onions have turned translucent, add the ginger and garlic to the pan and cook until the garlic is cooked through, about 3-5 minutes.

Hopefully by now the water has boiled and you can dissolve the stock.

When the garlic is cooked (and smelling amazing), drizzle in the honey.

Next, add the stock and red wine. Turn the heat up to medium and bring to a boil to burn off the alcohol.

Turn off the heat, add the sausages and put the entire pan into the oven to finish cooking the sausages and reduce the sauce.

Allow the sausages to cook away for 15 minutes.

Take the sausages out of the oven and return the pan to the stovetop on medium heat to reduce the juices down into a thicker gravy.

While the sauce is reducing, drain and mash the potatoes with lots of butter, milk, salt, and pepper.

When the gravy has reached a consistency you like, take the pan off the heat.

Grab a plate or a bowl and add a big dollop of mashed potato with the sausages all drizzled with the gravy. If you want, you can even go big and cook up some peas and corn to add colour.